Digital Enterprise Transformation - 360° Journal

CASE STUDYPRO3 AT ALLIANZA New Dimension of Customer CentricityWhat can a successful market leader do to further strengthen its customerrelationship? At Allianz, top management decided to implement Pro3, atransformational program to reach a new level of customer centricity.by Axel Uhl and Oliver HanslikMartin Künzel is constantly on the road.He is the rollout manager of an importanttransformation at the Allianz BeratungsundVertriebs-AG, the consulting andsales organization of Allianz DeutschlandAG. As a manager with many years ofsales experience at Allianz, he is usedto travelling, but the sheer number of kilometershe is covering at present is takingon a whole new dimension, even forhim. Each week – sometimes on a dailybasis – he commutes between Leipzig,Munich, and Hamburg, and never tires ofexplaining the objectives and motivationbehind the Pro3 program in order to expediteits implementation.A new dimension is also the transformationproject itself, as it involves nothingless than changing the largest field salesorganization in Germany. More than9,000 mostly already successful and independentgeneral and main agents, another3,500 employed salesmen, as wellas some 5,000 office staff in the variousagencies need to be convinced and enthusedabout this new sales concept. Theprogram is called Pro3 and it representsa partly shift in Allianz’s sales strategy –from “good salesmanship” towards morecustomer-oriented consulting services.There has often been talk of consultingin the past as well, but still the focus wasrather on the successful salesperson andnot as much on the customer-orientedconsultant. This time, however, Allianz isserious about it.“The future of our profession and alsothat of the Allianz Deutschland salesmodel, with its general and main agents,will be sustainably changed through thisproject”, says Martin Künzel. To this end,he willingly accepts the burden that thisinvolves; it will take another one or twoyears until the change will be effectivelyimplemented. That is a long time, especiallyin sales, where you are measuredin terms of your latest figures and whereis little room for patience. But this time,Allianz will have the necessary persistence– Künzel is sure of that.Allianz SEAllianz SE is the world’s second largestinsurance group in terms of sales revenue1 and has its headquarters in Munich,Germany. The company was founded in1890 by supervisory board members ofMunich RE, a large reinsurance company.To this day, Allianz and Munich REmaintain very close contact.Allianz SE has several business units(see fig. 1) 2 and serves some 78 millioncustomers in 70 countries. In 2011, about142,000 employees generated €103.651